We started to pull the anchor in lovely Khutz Bay only to find that the anchor chain was apparently snagged on something. Being in 60 feet of water there was no way to know what was going on down there. We had about 150' of chain out and only got about 25' of it up when the windlass ground to halt and the bow moved downward. Yikes! We jockeyed around, forward and back, side to side, for a minute or two but that did not break it free. But we managed to get another 15' into the boat and then it stalled again. We did this several times until all of the sudden everything was fine. We retrieved the anchor with no issues after that. But, it gave Alex and I each a few minutes of serious concern. The is a reported wreck in the bay, but it was several hundred yards away according to all of our charts. We were in the outflow of a river, so perhaps it was a tree or root-ball sitting on the bottom? We will never know.
 |
| The anchor is free. Time to move to a new location. Beautiful day. |
It was an absolutely stunning morning with whisps of fog hanging in the hills and dipping into the water. Almost magical.
 |
| Fog forming in the valleys and spilling out into the sea |
We swung by the old village of Butedale. Kathy and I had stopped here 15 years ago when we made this trip in a previous boat. It was a crumbling, ghost town back then. Someone has bought the place and is attempting to restore it. They have recently torn down most of the buildings, install a new dock and ramp, and are working hard to make this a place to stop in the future.
 |
| The waterfall at Butedale |
 |
| Not much left. Most of the old buildings are now gone. |
 |
| Only one large building remains. |
 |
| This is about the extent of the information we have about the future of Butedale |
 |
Unfortunately, they were closed today. Darn, soft-serve ice cream would have
made our day. |
Lowe Inlet is in the middle of the long and narrow Grenville Channel. The currents can run up to 4 knots in Grenville Channel, so timing is critical if you want to make any progress, and be fuel efficient. It is a bit complex to figure the exact transit times as water enters from both ends of the channel and mixes somewhere in the middle. The mixing point changes depending on the tide levels at each end of the channel. Common wisdom says you should enter from the south just before the tide starts to drop (arriving on the flood current) and fight that current for an hour or so, and then ride the ebb as the direction changes when the water starts to drop. Getting that right is tougher than it sounds.
We swung by a small fishing village to take advantage of their cell tower to check weather, texts, email, and to put up a few blog posts. Then we debated our next move. Stay put here for the night, or continue on into Grenville channel and try to get to Lowe Inlet. As far as we could figure the currents would be in our favor and we would get a free boost in boat speed. We were right. Our throttle setting was about 7.5 knots, but we were doing 9 knots. Nice. We were surrounded by commercial fishing vessels all headed north.
 |
Getting passed by a commercial fishing vessel in Grenville Channel.
See anything different about this boat? |
 |
A nice vantage point. People get creative trying to make these long passages
more interesting. |
Oh, this morning as we motored out of Khutz Bay we discovered the other Hatteras was anchored in the outer bay. We are on a very similar timeline with them and have seen them multiple times now. They pulled anchor about 30 minutes after us and followed us for an hour or two and then turned into Ursulla Channel to go visit Bishop Bay Hot Springs. We chatted on the VHF for a few minutes until they disappearing in the deep canyon walls and radio connection was lost.
We pulled into Lowe Inlet just as the wind picked up to almost 30 knots (from about 10 knots). The seas quickly turned to whitecaps, the temperature dropped 15 degrees, and a few raindrops started to fall. As we turned into the great protection of Lowe Inlet with it's steep and tall canyon walls, the wind dropped to less than 5 knots. The skies cleared. The temperature soared to 82 degrees. It was if we had been transported to an entirely different climate in a matter of minutes.
 |
Our cat Zappa has a schedule. He sleeps in a little cat bed in the
pilothouse but awakes about every hours to get some attention,
then back to his bed. |
 |
Steve's dream boat. A Nordhavn 52. Maybe someday? They were anchored right
in front of the waterfall in Lowe Inlet. |
 |
The waterfall at Lowe Inlet. Kevin said he wanted to kayak this. We did not
let him. |
In Lowe inlet we anchored in about 65' of water, on the skinny shelf just to the south of the waterfall. When we backed toward shore to set the anchor we were in about 20' of water, and about 50' away from going aground. When we swung away from shore the depth plummeted to over 100'. The anchoring is definitely challenging up here. We have great ground tackle and are setting electronic "anchor watches" to warn us if we drag anchor. We are anchoring in locations recommended by books and friends
 |
It's going to be a great day! How often do you get good news in these dialog boxes?
The gods are surely smiling upon us :-) |
No comments:
Post a Comment